Hope Placement

I’m sure I’m going to ruffle some feathers with the following post. Maybe even lose a few date opportunities over it, but, the transparency is worth it to me. This is reality kids. Let’s deal with it.

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I want to get married. I truly do. It’s one of those desires that has been woven into my being. I want to share life with someone that gets me. I want to wake up next to my partner in crime. I want to share meals and snowy mornings with ‘the one’. I dream about it more than I should and sometimes being single is hard.

But, here’s the deal: I have got to stop placing my hope into the belief that I’ll meet ‘the one’ and get married some day.

I’m not trying to be cynical but I’ve  tried putting my hope into the belief that I won’t be single forever time and time again and it always seems to disappear. Reassuring sentiments from dear ones float around me; “You’ll find someone!” or “You’re a young girl. You’re time will come.” Do they say that because it is what makes sense and sounds good? Will it really happen? How do you know? It’s out of love that comforting words are spoken but at the end of it all, when the nice words grow silent, I am still left with the same uncertainty that I began with. I don’t know if I will find ‘the one’. It gives me the warm fuzzies to think I will, maybe even believe it every once in a while. But the fact remains that I don’t have a down payment to prove whether or not this will be my reality. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort trying to lock away the doubt and hold onto the warm and fuzzies of my dream come true but it’s exhausting and, honestly, it ends here. Why?

My hope is only satisfied in one place: the heart of God.

Give me another minute before you write this off as another one of ‘those’ blogs attempting to explain away the pain of singleness with a few nice words and well placed Bible verses. Roll those eyes back down to the screen and hear me out.

 I’ve spent so much time trying to hang on to a dream that I desperately want to come true only to realize that I have little to no control in how it turns out. I have to learn that, while these desires may be God given, truly pure, and a downright good, good blessing, I can’t keep channeling my energy and hope into a dream that I have no control over. I’ll only continue to experience the disappointment and pain that comes from an unanswered desire. I cannot hang onto that desire as a lifeline to happiness anymore. I have to let go and pour my belief and hope into the perfect character of God because that is the only place it will be satisfied. In relationship with the King, I am truly fulfilled.

Think of what your dream or desire is. The big one. The one that keeps you up at night and consumes your day dreams. The truth is-it may not happen. If that reality shakes your world, then your world wasn’t centered on the right thing in the first place.

Who do you love more? The blessing or the Blesser? What do you hope more in? You dream come true or the One who gave you the dream?

When you stand with the King and you put your faith in the Faith Giver, you get off the roller coaster of unanswered dreams and desires and step into the incredible fulfillment of the Creator without another penny in your bank account, or ring on your finger, or child in your arms. And guess what? In the same way that you don’t know if your dream will come true, you don’t know that it won’t either. I challenge you to step back and see that your hope and faith can only be safe in the One who gave you the desire in the first place, not the desire itself.

Get off the roller coaster.

Put your hope in the good, good Father and be at peace with whatever reality He has planned for you.